The Effect of Platelet Rich Plasma on Pain at Skin Graft Donor Sites

University of Arizona

Status: Terminated

Conditions: Skin Graft Detachment; PRP; Skin Graft (Allograft) Rejection; Skin Graft Complications

Treatments: Procedure: PRP harvest and preparation

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03937765

PRP Study

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to compare post-operative skin graft donor site pain between those treated with standard wound care vs PRP. Secondarily the study is designed to compare time to complete donor site healing. The null hypothesis is that here is no difference in post-operative donor site pain between those treated with standard wound care and PRP. The secondary null hypothesis is that there is no difference in time to donor site healing.

Full description

A well-known complaint after a split thickness skin graft surgery is pain at the graft donor site. In our patients, it has been have noticed those whose donor sites have been treated with platelet rich plasma (PRP) have endorsed decreased pain compared to those who have not. During our literature review few studies have looked at this issue. One such study by Miller et. al. looked at 5 patients whose donor site was treated with PRP showed a significant decrease in pain on a Likert visual pain scale. Kakudo et al. performed a side-by-side comparison on a single patient with half the wound treated with PRP and the other as a control. They found better epithelization and reduced pain during dressing changes for the treatment group. Both of these studies show promising results for pain reduction with PRP use, unfortunately there are no high quality randomized control trials that have looked at this. Another issue is many studies on PRP assess reduction of pain as a secondary outcome and instead focus on wound healing and epithelization primarily.

This study hopes to elucidate the effect of PRP application on graft donor site pain. Patients will be recruited to the study and randomized into either treatment or control group based on medical necessity for a skin graft. This study will assess pain at the donor site via Likert pain scale and monitor narcotic pain medication use.

Enrollment: 25 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Any patient requiring a split thickness skin graft and is above the age of 18.

Exclusion criteria

• Medical history of chronic pain at the donor site
• Inability to follow up
• Unable to participate in pre or post operative questionnaire inclusive of organic
• Traumatic, chemical or degenerative causes of altered mental sensorium
• Age <18.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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25 participants in 2 patient groups

PRP

Experimental group

Description:

Intervention group will receive PRP instead of the standard of care for skin grafts. PRP Group-will remove surgical dressing post operative day 5. Donor site will be cleaned with soap and water daily and dressed with gauze daily until drainage stops.

Treatment:

Procedure: PRP harvest and preparation

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

Control group receiving the standard of care for skin grafts. Control Group-will remove gauze dressing post operative day 2 but leave adeptic. Donor site will be cleaned daily with soap and water. Gauze applied daily as needed for drainage and will be stopped when drainage stops. The adeptic, which forms a biologic dressing, will be removed by the patient over time as it lifts from the wound.